Where the Williams name comes from

Williams is William with an s on the end, which in English does the job of saying whose son you are. William itself is Germanic, from Wiljahelmaz, a compound of wilja, will or desire, and helmaz, a helmet, and English took the spelling back from the Norman Williame after 1066. In Wales the surname is something else underneath: an anglicisation of ap Gwilym, the Welsh way of saying son of William. It is the third most common surname in Wales and in the United States, second in New Zealand and fourth in Australia.